 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. This is a program which we called Present, Past and the Future and I am Nilanjan Mukhopadhyaya, the host for this program. Today we are going to talk about Ayodhya, an issue for which we have been talking about for decades in India and it's actually you know dictated the flow of politics in India for at least since the 1980s. In the last few weeks Ayodhya issue has rode back to life primarily on because two Supreme Court verdicts. One was actually to say that an observation made in the two decade old judgment that a mosque is not integral to Islam on that there was a verdict. And then again a four minute hearing of the Supreme Court when the Chief Justice of India said that Ayodhya issue the title suit which is pending is not their priority and in January they shall decide that whether it is going to be heard on a daily basis which bench is going to hear it. Those various issues are going to be decided in January. It is not a priority matter. Now this has led to a backlash from the Sangh Parivar. The RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwad has already said that the temple is absolutely essential at this stage. There is a lot of exasperation being expressed right from the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to various other people saying that the Supreme Court is not being correct by delaying the thing that it is actually a great priority matter. Now so we are actually moving towards some kind of thing what I call a end game as far as Ayodhya issue is concerned and to discuss this I am joined today by Venkatesh Ramakrishnan who has been a fellow journalist for almost more than three decades. In fact Venkatesh I say that collectively I have the eye and you have 64 years of Ayodhya reporting right from 1986 onwards. We have spent many an afternoon in very languid atmosphere in Ayodhya and seen it through a lot of turbulence. There is something which has been bothering me in the last few days that in 92 much before December 6th 1992 we knew that the mosque is going to be demolished you know even before you know you actually confirmed and did stories speaking on the basis of your conversations with Vinay Katya who actually shared that how engineering analysis had been done of the Babri Merchant to know exactly which spots had to be hammered to bring it down very fast. At that time it was certain there was a kind of a pre-order in destiny that it is going to be demolished. I am not able to put my finger on as to what is happening now. There is no doubt that the Ayodhya temple is going to be built I mean and I think if it is possible they would build it before the term of this government is over the only problem will build it or they will begin building it. They will begin building it. Unlike the demolition the mosque cannot be built in a day that the temple cannot be built in a day. The prefabrication see there are various claims about prefabrication. Right. So I have been I have gone to Karsavakpuram repeatedly in the last 10 years and I have spoken to a lot of people who are in charge of incidentally the man who is in charge of demolition is now in charge of the prefabrication. Right. Who is this man? Mr. Rai. Champak Rai is in charge of the. He has been a long VHP. Yeah. He is now in charge of the prefabrication. Okay. And so under his supervision everything has been done all they have to do is actually go and put it together and tighten the screws. There are various claims about it. They are saying that they can put it up in one week. They can put it up in 10 days, 15 days. I tend to kind of take all that the pinch of salt as like many of their arguments. But what I think is going to happen that the issue of Ram temple is going to come up and along with that the issue of the other two temples. In fact if you remember this. This is Jhaki, Mathura, Kashi and Baki. So I think we are going to see a big focus on Kashi and there are lot of things happening in Varanasi at this point of time. Like? Like for example there is this construction of what is called Ganga Pathway. Ganga corridor is under construction. And they have identified about 300 structures around the Kashi Vishnu temple which includes both Hindu structures, neutral structures and Muslim structures. And I think work is progressing on that. And my own gut feeling is that you know that you will have a very explosive situation in Varanasi in the next few months. So and parallely and this whole game plan in Ayodhya will also move forward. And I think you know collectively we are going to have a huge massive revival of the Hindu plan. I have a question that in Ayodhya you also have this huge Ram statue also coming up. In Varanasi they are also building a Ganga Pathway as you kind of said. So these alternate constructions which is it not kind of a fallback something that if this does not if the temple does not work out at least people let them have a big statue of Ram in Ayodhya. No I see it in different thing. I mean the point is you know that there may still be people who say that why is the temple not built even after you got five years you got major huge majority at the center, huge majority in the states. And I think lot of Hindu supporters are going to ask that question. So this this statue is a fallback option for that. But I think what is going what is happening in Varanasi is more substantive. It is almost as decisive as what happened in Ayodhya 1992. Okay. So they are actually going about identifying structures which could be targeted in the next few months. How it is going to happen? It is not yet very clear very clear. Now obviously it means that there is a huge amount of you know a very serious attempt to create a platform which we can call as the Hindutva plus platform you know which is not just the Hindutva as we used to know earlier that not just the Ram temple issue but many other issues Ram temple or the other temple issues. But there are various other issues also being linked up. Whether it is in regard to beef eating cow protection or whether it is love jihad or even now what has happened is a recent spate of renaming of cities and towns you know Ayodhya district Fezabad district being renamed as Ayodhya. These are all various kind of small low hanging fruit which is being done. There is also of course this long pending demand of theirs that even at some point you know once we have complete control the name India should also be changed. You know in fact Jai Duvashi had written an article in the organizer called saying that we should rename it Hindudesh because then our nationality is going to be Hindu. So whether the Muslim man likes it or not when he goes for Hajj his passport is stamped that he is a Hindu. So everybody is a Hindu so there is no majority or minority. Now the question is that is this being done because the development plank which was put up front in 2013-2014 has not really worked this government has really not delivered on its promises and does it also mean that it is they really think that there is no other way that they can win an election. Now I am hearing this from many people in the recent past but if you really look at the 2014 I mean 2013-14 campaign plank it was not entirely just development. Of course not. Yeah it was it had. He kept on calling Rahul Gandhi as Shehzadeh he kept on calling Delhi. No no in fact if you remember 2013 September exactly 10 months before the elections right you had this massive riots in western Uttar Pradesh which killed so many people and the kind of reverberations. Had riots not happened BJP would not have won 73 seats along with allies. So you know I don't know why we are saying that development plank has failed. The thing is you know that there was this communal angle the Hindutva politics was always part and parcel of the BJP's you know election plank whether it is thematic or practical. Only thing is that you know that they have been even a even a even a bigger failure than. Let's let's put it this way that in 2013-14 development was put on the table first. Hindutva was there always in the background. But now it is the Hindutva plus whether it's Ram whether it is the Varanasi issue Love Jihad renaming of cities this is being put up front that we are doing it. Stop it if you can and development is the issue is back is at the back of the of the carrier and we are going to talk about what this government has achieved in the last five years various schemes which has been done. We have provided you know bank accounts to everybody. We have provided health insurance etc etc. You know I'll tell you something I'll tell you something which I had heard in the first year of governance. The first year of the government you know there were people who were talking about the kind of big things that Modi was planning to do in terms of not only in terms of development but in terms of changing the basic governance mechanism of this country. So what I was told by some people who are named to be very close to Modi and who whom I know are some of them are pretty close to the prime minister. They were saying that you know that in the first year of government the prime minister will make sure that 50 politicians senior politicians are in the jail for corruption in corruption cases convicted in corruption cases cutting across party lines. So said that you know that there will be congress fellows there will be BJP people there will be. But it has not happened. It has not happened. So is it going to be in the last year? No no I don't see there's any kind of point is in if you have to take something to conviction there is some groundwork that's to be done. So that groundwork has not been done. It has not been done by any investigating agencies and you know what the situation in our premier investigating agency is. So I don't get busy investigating one another. Yeah yeah central bureau of intrigue. So that's a nice way to call the CVI. Yeah so what I'm saying is that you know all these big promises were there. So their own estimation that is in the estimation of die hard fans of the prime minister and his chief acolyte Mr. Amit Shah in their own estimation they have failed. You know their own estimation they they they say that you know that we have not been able to do what had to be done. So it is very very evident for every one of them including you know the Kari Karthas and the Karsevaks the potential Karsevaks that they have only this plank. How it is going to put the Hindus against Muslims and only that way consolidate the Hindu water. So but exactly how it is going to roll out. Would this be enough to get the 10 percent extra that it would require from what it had in 2013 or 14 31 percent is what that's a question I that's a question I would not want to answer at this point of time because I I think you know because the situation on the ground is very fluid. There are two factors which I've been seeing in the last one year consistently. There is colossal dissolutionment about the government right there is colossal dissolutionment about the BJP as a political organization. There is marginal dissolutionment on Modi as the prime minister in spite of his huge failures colossal failures. There are these arguments which are being raised in his favor by the BJP organizational Sankarivar organization structure which you know very well is a very powerful missionary and it that has some traction it is not as to it does not have traction. I'll give you a small example. One of my friends was doing a kind of survey for a corporate house in Rajasthan. So he came up with this interesting thing. Vasundhra Rajesh's popularity was down to 17 percent. Ashok Gailot had a chief minister real approval rating of 57 percent. Sachin Pilat had an approval rating of 23 percent. But Modi's approval rating as prime minister as prime minister was close to 70 which is a fact that you know that it was then it was it was it was it was in the range of 85 to 90 in 2014. Does it mean then we are in a situation where the past trend of whoever performs well in Madhya Pradesh Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh as we have seen in the past three elections has also tended to win the majority of seats in the subsequent parliamentary elections that this may not be the trend this time that it is quite possible that the BJP may end up losing Rajasthan maybe even one or two other states you know Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh yet do very well in the Lok Sabha elections when they held in a few months. It is possible. The central question is how they are going to do in Uttar Pradesh. I think you know beyond I mean this is a this is a factor which we talk that you know that people who have won Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have won the central election. But I think more importantly in the election the 2019 Lok Sabha elections are going to be decided in. So, we are back to whoever wins UP, wins India. It is also we are now also in the 25th year of the 93 assembly elections in UP and first time ever the most unlikely political alliance Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh Yadav none of them are actually players now it is the Mayavati and Akhilesh now are players they got together. After Babri Masjid BJP learned very bitterly that great ideas do not convert electorally always that mathematics can always be against you. How is the mathematics you also travel extensively to UP half the time you are there in Uttar Pradesh. How is it building up there if there is an alliance even if the Congress and the RLD do not come. If there is a SP-BSP alliance and if they are able to manage the cast equations in the constituencies properly in terms of candidates I would not be surprised if the BJP comes down to single digits. If it really works out very well. But if that really happens then it is a huge thing. No, no, that is where that is where that is where this revival this massive revival and aggressive revival of the Hindutva party. The most dangerous aspect of this aggressive revival the way the BJP is plotting the narrative is that they are challenging the judiciary. They are trying to create a situation you understand Kerala also very well not just because you're you're from that state but also because you've had very keenly followed events there. Shabri Mala I think you know has been created a situation where a court verdict has been allowed to be challenged by people's court. So has a precedent been set you can very well say that the people's court reject whatever Supreme Court is saying on Ayodhya. They don't want to hear do a hearing we don't bother about the hearing we are going to start construction. If tomorrow 10,000 people you know suddenly very sneak up into Ayodhya and with the prefabricated structures land up one morning. We wake up and see that through the night. They can create a scene. See if you remember in 1992 also they violated the the assurance in 19. Shilanias was permitted by the Rajiv Gandhi government even though it was within the disputatory they deliberately said you know no it is outside they used a map which was not at least there was a slate of hand there. Here they gave an assurance to Supreme Court saying that we will do only Bhajan and Kirtan as part of Karseva and they came and demolished it and on the day before the demolition Vajpayee says Bhajan Kirtan can also mean that you know you can't just you know there will be there will be boulders which will have to be cleared. So giving enough indication as to what they are going to do. So this violation of Supreme Court orders or violation of the constitution is nothing new to the Hindutva Brigade. They have done it repeatedly. They are doing it in Kerala what has happened is they have got a new icon in the form of Ayapa who is actually not even a Hindu god. So they have they have they have now constructed this narrative around Lord Ayapa in Kerala just as they created this narrative around Lord Ram in Ayodhya in the 1980s and 90s. It's a very well structured plan. It's a plan which is being repeatedly you know practiced and advanced and what they did in Ayodhya was also similar to what they are doing in Ayodhya in when Varanasi at this point of time. You know we have also seen in the last three and a half decades since the Ayodhya agitation has been on right from 1984, 83 onwards when it was started. There have been occasions when there have been divisions within the Sangh Pariva. You have had various petty personality clashes in the last few years. The VHP was completely out of sync both during Ashok Singhal's time also it had a different kind of vision. How do you see the internal dynamics of within the Sangh Pariva? If I ask you that according to me that possibly the unity level the index of unity within the Sangh Pariva is among the most highest that we have ever seen. Would you agree with it? I think I would agree with that though I think the top brass the divisions within the top brass are much more palpable and sharp now than it was earlier. See if you look at the the the outfits the the the index of opposition or index of unity within the Sangh Pariva outfits it is much higher but not necessarily among the individuals in the top brass. So which means that collectively as far as the cadre is concerned that there is a certain amount of unanimity that we must do what is being pursued by this government that this greater push to Hindutva is something for which we must come together even if it means forsaking or sacrificing some of our other issues. Absolutely. You know for instance you know the BMS has hardly been aggressive in the trade union front. It has been losing in support to the other trade unions so is the case with the Kisan Sabha. So there are challenges. No no in fact I think the kind of subjugation to authority or central authority among the Sangh Pariva outfits is is near total complete. So finally as we get into the conclusive part of this discussion that between now and the next elections you actually see some real construction work beginning something some symbolic something like that we really do not know they are capable of coming off with very unique. No no it can happen what I am apprehensive or I am actually fearful of is of large scale mayhem and violence across the Ganga Brahmaputra belt. Not just Ganga but the Brahmaputra. Even Brahmaputra which means that northeast also gets affected. I would put it that way I mean construction and all that will be a minor episode in this large scale mayhem that may have. How can the opposition at this stage you know do something to prevent what is being planned? Is it capable of? The point is you know we we we do not know real politics that well or to give an advice but then I have been trying to warn people but then that's all what we can do at this point of time there is no way we can say that you know that this is a solution to prevent it. Vinkatesh thank very much it's been you know we are ending on a rather depressive note because there is this fear of major communal buildup as we get closer to the elections. We have had a short conversation as to how the agitation actually moving towards an end game we really do not know to what extent this is going to have an impact on the elections. Thank you.